///The Afternoon///

Stiff wind blows

Shatters the bottle that held my flower

I'm staring at the broken glass

Water drips down

I take a walk down the street

No one walks there, really

I do, though

And another hour has gone by in another day

And I love it

//Figuration Nº.3//

//Figuration Nº.3//

She runs her hands over wine stains
fondly -and saves dead flowers

Minds her p’s and q’s
and dots her I’s
as she slowly,
packs away.

These are getting to be a bit out of order. I mill over some longer than others but they're all tagged under 'figurations' for quick reference.

This one's a figuration of someone I know captivated by life's abstract impressions and expressions in the form of stains, spots, dried leaves and flowers or funeral offerings and what-have-you.

//Figuration Nº.5 (in memoriam)//

//Figuration Nº.5 (in memoriam)//

A man fills himself with dog smiles
and dies a dog’s death.

This is a poem about an old guy I knew growing up that lived on my street, and below is a bit of prose from the initial notes I scratched out on my memories of the guy.
---
He somehow wound up stuck living with his two invalid sisters in a clapboard house the entire time I knew him surrounded by a yard with a slight fence populated by nine crazy shelties, crumbling birdbaths and one of those gazing orbs that look like an overgrown Christmas ornament.

Consequently he shuffled around town most of the time chain-smoking from dawn to dusk, and dusk to dawn in these C.W. McCall type sunglasses with a perpetual marmitic-sepia sort of sunset cast over his eyes, taking out the bins of people that had let another trash day slip their mind 'because he could', 'because he was shuffling to the doughnut shop to get their day-olds anyway' he'd usually say in the tone of a concrete mixer chewing something over.

//-{ }-//

//-{ }-//
(Sv.)
Du
död

den eviga tungan
huvud gud.

(En.)
You
dead

this eternal-tongue
head-god.

I wrote this one night while I was sitting drunk in front of a fridge covered in Swedish magnetic poetry. It was in reference to the idea of the homunculus/the notion of the 'self' -the Minnikin-the small child that lives in the head or the private dialogue.

...Yeah I don't know, some nights it's this stuff others it's cartoons and questioning my competence to consume hot eggdrop soup without burning the roof my mouth again, go figure.

Crawlers

An explanatory preface: I work at three separate bars dealing blackjack and for months have been writing small vignettes on actual people I have met/observed while dealing. My initial goal was merely to relieve a bit of my hopelessness at seeing so many people waste their lives at these soulless businesses, desperately searching for some bit of solace I figured they could never find there. Nearly 40 vignettes later, and it has become less of an emotional outpouring and more of a philosophical inquiry into the existential insights bars can provide. These are the first five I wrote, all of which were quickly scribbled down in a small notebook during my breaks. Some of the names are real, others are not, but all are actual people with larger stories than I am able to tell.

1. Marty
He's forty, perhaps forty-five. A gangly and awkward man, he wears a tan zip-up and blue dress pants every night, even when it seems uncomfortably warm. He has never spoken a word to anyone, just eyes us all from behind black pupils. His dark hair is greying and barely a wisp slumbers upon his pointy skull. I would think he was a serial killer but for one tell: he only watches the dealers. No girls in skirts or waitresses in short-shorts get his attention, only the cards in my hands as I shuffle and deal smoothly across the table. He plays only as often as he speaks, yet there is a game being conducted in his mind as the queens and kings fly back and forth, back and forth, over and over without end. Without looking away, he slowly raises his hand for another glass.

2. Gloria
She's always on her cell, pausing only to switch hands and ears. She'd be a mystery if only her high pitched voice didn't give away her high maintenance issues; even the lesbian cougars know to stay away. We all politely ignore as she sobs and rages at her "Lydia" (girlfriend?wife?lover?pimp?) who slept with her own "Sam" (also known as "Cunt" and "Vag Slut" and the "her" of "It's her breasts, isn't it? So you prefer slutty D's now, is that it?!"). I have no sympathy for her until the night she - quiety and without the usual fuss - tucks her phone into her bra, eying the cougars with a deep calm confidence which could just as easily be interpreted as insanity by those of us who know better. Maybe it's over with Lydia, or perhaps she's finally past the point of sexual loyalty; either way, the cell is off and it's obvious there is nothing and nobody left worth sobbing over.

3. Lewis
He comes every Wednesday for the baseball games, but stays for the cards. He smiles even when he loses a hand, only raising his voice when Metallica comes on over the speakers. He calls himself a silver fox, and he is, but also reminds me I'm too young for him so "don't even try, sweetheart." He pulls out his Blackberry to check facebook each time I shuffle, explaining that it's the only way his estranged son he abandoned at the age of five ("When I was dumb, young and desperate") will let him keep in contact. He carries the device in his breast pocket, close to his heart, tenderly tapping it through the faded fabric every time he gets a blackjack. His grin never falters.

4. Avril
She's a cultural slut and I hate her guts. She sings to me at least four times a night though, so we do our best to tolerate one another. She's won every battle we've ever fought, stealing the players' attention away from the table each time her puckered lips and digitally enhanced breasts thrust out from the large HD screen. I sing along to her songs out of habit, until the night a player comments to me as I mouth along to her #3 hit single, "Wow, you know all the words. You must really like this song, eh?" "Fuck no," I reply. "She sucks and I hope her candy ass explodes tootsie rolls all over pinata-style someday." The player, a girl in her twenties who could be a dead ringer for the aforementioned candy-assed devil woman, laughs and nods in agreement. Avril - 20,000-ish, Me - 1. I will win this war yet.

5. Maria
She's the fat girl of her group, the one who shyly decides to "watch over" the drinks and purses as her friends slut it up on the dance floor. She's the most dignifed of them all and I want to tell her so, but she doesn't have the courage to approach the table. She won't even look me in the eye from across the room, or match gazes with any other girl in the joint for that matter. Glancing at my shuffling hands, she seems mildly interested, and for a moment I think she's walking over to try a hand or two... but then she veers for the side exit, cigarette and lighter clasped in a sweaty palm. Her downcast eyes and teal-painted lids tell me all I need to know; she's many lonely nights away from the day she'll take a chance and just bet all she's got.

Drone In The Back of My Mind

Listening to a Scottish guitar play its drone

Wandering through a dark place, lead by its hand

Wondering what comes next

Imagining what might be

Dreaming of a deep deep sleep

Ocular Herpes

A name far worse

Than the disease.

My vision clouds six times daily

And a sting-

Fire to my eyes and vinegar to my nose.

Nuclear water

Drains down the pipes.

Now through glass,

The world seems smaller,

Almost quaint.

I only hope

That at the end

I keep the perspective,

Leave the pain.

------------------

There's nothing terribly introspective about this. Quite the opposite in fact. In Russia, I got ocular herpes somehow. Too much unprotected eye sex maybe. Or perhaps the metro. In any case, I had a really awful routine. Every morning, I had to flush my eyes with some kind of liquid that looked like yellow hilighter had been soaking in. Then, eye drops. Wait 5 minutes. More eye drops. Wait 5 minutes. Manually RUB cream into my eyes. Repeat 6 times daily for 4 weeks.

//Figuration Nº.2//

//Figuration Nº.2//

Single serving charm
Minican soul
Made for tv disposition
Pat Sajack haircut

-MUTED-

.awareness

He is the things people see
with the warmth of novelty.

Another figuration. I'll be doing a series of these. If you recognise yourself don't get offended too easily. Identity's not the point of these exercises. Essentialism and foolish Romantic notions play no role here either.

Feel free to sketch me out too. I'm too bound up in myself as is these days I think. It'd do me some good.

Northern Sky In June

Warm haze

Brings thoughts to mind

of decay

of things lost

I'm feeling now

color

How does that happen

Make me melt

Float away

//Figuration Nº.1//

//Figuration Nº.1//

Eat falafels
Close one sad eye during the conversation

Let it look for a sunny day.

I met with a friend for lunch a while back. I was doing a lot of portraiture and some figure drawing at the time. If I'd had a pad of paper I'd have scrawled down that bit of peasant grace diligently and carefully as a page or a squire if only I had the memory to match with the proper faculty anymore. It was however this that was the essential expression/gesture that stuck with me as described in words. I hope one day to be able to reconstitute these written descriptions into drawings.

Absinthe

The flame licks the glass

And the green poison bursts to flame.

My nose catches the strong scent of burning

And I recoil

--If only for a second.

He chuckles,

I smile,

As the second flame makes contact with her wings.

This time I breathe it in

Anise touches the back of my throat,

Grips on

As if to hold the way for what's to come.

The third flame strikes

What's left of the green fairy comes undone

And as I drink her in

Our minds begin to grapple,

And in the midst of the struggle I realize

That I will never know if I won.

--------------------------

No secrets here. I drank some absinthe last night, and scribbled this out on a spare piece of paper while making the 40 minute stumble home at 4am. Couldn't think of a better title.

Alternative Eating

Lead paint diet

Tell me when

And send me back to work again.

//Highway 22//

Snow streaked wind lines dance over the road:
______________
It’s quiet and I’ve passed_____
____far
________Far away from where I’m going.